ties of that holy place; you must keep your minds intent all the while upon him before whom ye are, and upon the work which he hath there set you; you must confess your sins heartily; you must receive his absolution faithfully; you must hear his word attentively; you must pray sincerely; you must "praise him lustily and with a good courage:" and when ye receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, you must do it with that true repentance, that strong faith, that heavenly joy and thankfulness, that is due to so great a mystery. Thus exercising your souls continually in these holy and spiritual duties that are performed in God's lower houses upon earth, you will be every day more and more prepared and fitted to live with him in heaven, there to enjoy and praise him for ever.

SERMON XVII.

A GOOD-FRIDAY SERMON.

ZECH. xii. 10.

"And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."

WE this day commemorate the passion of our blessed Saviour, the passion of the Son of God,-the greatest mystery that was ever known or heard of in the world; that light itself should be darkened, love rejected, innocence accused, justice condemned, life die, even God himself suffer,-who is able to think upon it without ecstasies and raptures? Who can speak of it without astonishment and admiration? And yet how strange soever it may seem to be, it is altogether as true too, as being attested by truth and veracity itself.

And it is well for us it was so, even that he who suffered was truly God, as well as man; otherwise we had been all lost and undone for ever. For if he had not been man, he could not have suffered at all for us: so if he had not been God, too, he could not have saved us by his sufferings; all the virtue and efficacy of his passions depending altogether upon the worth and excellency of the Person that underwent them, who being God as well as man, although he suffered only in his manhood, yet that manhood being at the

same time united to the Godhead in the same Person, these his sufferings could not but be of infinite value and merit, as being the sufferings of God himself, who is therefore said to have purchased "his church with his own blood 1."

And this, indeed, is the only ground and foundation of all our hopes and expectations from Christ; for he, being both perfect God and perfect man in one and the same Person, did, by his one oblation of himself once offered, make a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; whereby there is none of us but in and through him may now obtain both the pardon of all our sins, and the eternal happiness and salvation of our souls, if we do but perform those easy conditions which are required of us, in order to our having the sufferings of our human nature in Christ applied to our own particular persons: that so we may be looked upon as having already undergone the punishment of our sins in him who died in our stead, and, by virtue of his merit and mediation for us, may be truly sanctified, and by consequence received into God's grace and favour here, and into his kingdom and glory hereafter.

And verily now that Christ hath done and suffered so much for us, we cannot surely but look upon ourselves as highly obliged to do and suffer all we can for him, at least, all that he expects from us; which indeed is but very little, or, rather, nothing in comparison of his love and kindness to us. For what would he have us do for him? Only what he himself hath commanded in the words of my text, saying, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him," &c.

For that these words are to be understood of Christ, is certain from the infallible testimony of St. John himself, who having related the doleful tragedy of our Lord's passion, how they pierced his hands and feet with nails, and his side with a spear, he saith, "That

1 Acts xx. 28.

all this was done that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They shall look on him whom they have pierced 2." Where he plainly quotes the words of my text, and applies them to our blessed Saviour. And indeed they cannot possibly be understood of any other person in the world; for none could speak these words but one who was both God and man. That he was God, is plain from the former part of the verse, where he saith, "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication." For it is acknowledged by all, that the Spirit of grace is not at the disposal of any creature, but that it is only in the power of God to bestow it upon us. And therefore he that here promiseth to pour out his Spirit upon his Church could be no other than God himself: and then that he was man too, appears from the next words, even those of my text, "And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced." For if he had not been man, he would not have been capable of being pierced by them. In short, therefore, if he had not been God, he could not have said, "I will pour upon them the Spirit of grace and supplication;" and if he had not been man, he could not have said, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced." And, therefore, he that spake these words could be no other than Christ himself, there being no person in the world that ever was, or so much as pretended to be, both God and man, but only he.

And as these words are spoken by Christ himself, so he spake them to his whole Church, and all the members of it, which he here calls "the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem;" under which titles both in this and other prophets the whole Church of Christ is frequently comprehended, especially in this place, where the Spirit of grace and supplication is promised. For this promise of the Spirit cannot possibly be restrained only to the Jewish nation, or in

2 John xix. 37.

habitants of Jerusalem, in a strict and literal sense; it being a great promise which was always made, and hath been all along fulfilled, to the universal Church, or congregation of faithful people dispersed over the whole world. And therefore we, as members of the Catholic Church, are all equally concerned in what is here said. But we must take all together. And as we desire Christ should perform the promise which here he makes to us, so we must be sure to perform the duties which he here requires of us, saying, "And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him," &c.

First, saith he, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced;" which words, I confess, may seem to be a promise, as well as command; our Saviour here promising to assist us with his grace and Spirit, to look upon him as we ought to do. But, seeing he neither promiseth to enable us to do any thing but what himself commandeth us to do, I shall briefly consider the words only as containing Christ's command to us, and, by consequence, our duty unto him. And that we may understand his divine will and pleasure in them aright, we must know that the verb 'an, here used in the original, sometimes signifies "the beholding any object with our bodily eyes;" but in this place it cannot possibly be so understood, for in that sense the whole Church never did, nor ever shall, see Christ, until we all appear before his judgment-seat; and, therefore, the word must needs be here, as it is elsewhere, used in a more large and metaphorical sense, even for "our looking upon him with the eye, not of sense, but of reason and faith."

And so it imports, that we ought to contemplate often, and meditate upon, our Saviour's death, not simply as in itself considered, but as suffered purely upon our account. "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced;" implying, that we should look upon him as pierced, as crucified by ourselves, for our sins, so as to acknowledge and believe that whatsoever he suffered was not for his own, but only for our